


Wherein Arthur Learns that Sometimes the Answers are Worse than the Questions

by anoyo



Series: Author's Favorites [9]
Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-06
Updated: 2009-10-06
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/anoyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin really needs a bowl, but, unfortunately, it can only be found in the past, and Arthur is how to get it done without a huge amount of issue, so, well, that's what he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherein Arthur Learns that Sometimes the Answers are Worse than the Questions

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly inspired by my ridiculous love for Arthurian legend and the aspect of Merlin existing outside of time. Uhm. There's a lot of metaphysics and linguistic interpretation here. I am sort of sorry. Originally posted [here](http://anoyo.livejournal.com/147097.html).

Arthur was faintly disturbed when, mid-pointless-anecdote, Merlin simply disappeared in front of him. In fact, Arthur was so disturbed that he dropped his whetstone on his foot, the pain of which let him know quite forcefully that he was Not Dreaming.

Strangely enough, he wasn't particularly reassured when Merlin reappeared not a minute later, dressed differently and looking slightly more adult. Merlin's cheerful, "Good evening!" did not make much of a dent in Arthur's mounting disturbance.

"Who are you?" he asked, pushing back his chair and standing. "And what is going on?"

The man who couldn't possibly actually be Merlin, but rather clearly _was_, tut-tutted a moment before replying, as though to a child, "I'm Merlin, obviously. Very little, at present, is going on, but in an hour or so, we'll be rather in the midst of something fairly exciting. Perhaps not the most dangerous thing we've ever done, or the most idiotic, but important nonetheless." Merlin smiled broadly again before walking to Arthur's wardrobe and pulling out a leather-lined fall jacket, which he handed to Arthur casually. "You ought to put that on; it is a tad chilly out this time of year."

As he couldn't really think of anything better to say, Arthur said again, "What is going on?" this time in a tone of voice that generally got Arthur the results he wanted, at least while dealing with his knights, or citizens, or anyone else not his father.

Sighing heavily, in a much put-upon manner, Merlin replied, "I'm afraid I had forgotten what, particularly, this time entailed." He pursed his lips. "Unfortunately, it's the only time that works, so I'm afraid it has to be now. I was always rather perplexed as to how you suddenly _knew_, but I suppose this does explain it." With another smile, Merlin continued, "I am, as I see you to have guessed on your own, Merlin, but not the present time's Merlin. Someday, I will explain to you how little that really affects anything, but that day is not today. In linear terms, I suppose I would have to say I am Merlin in the future, though that is not entirely correct. Is there anything in that that you would like me to explain further?"

Arthur considered that there were many things, really, but only one really seemed to be currently nagging at him. "How far in the future?" he asked, pointedly not considering the level of sheer implausibility that seemed to have once been his quiet evening.

"Really, that's not a logically correct question, but we can say that the me that I am at present is most commonly found in the present that is thirty years from now, give or take a bit." Merlin smiled in an indulgent way, seemingly waiting for Arthur to be done asking apparently inane questions.

Taking in the fact that Merlin appeared to be no more than twenty-five, Arthur was starting to believe that, maybe, he'd hit his head a little too hard in training. "That's just-- If you're here, where's, uhm, you? Of this present?" Arthur was almost completely sure he looked like a stuttering nitwit, and was both embarrassed and irritated by this circumstance.

"Well, as I can't exist in the same place more than once, I suppose I've ceased to exist for a little while," Merlin said calmly.

Arthur was less calm. "Ceased to-- You mean you're dead?" While he was by no means unintelligent, Arthur was beginning to doubt that even an addled version of his brain could come up with this situation.

Merlin tut-tutted again impatiently. "No, no. As soon as the me I am now leaves this place, the me that belongs to this place will be back. I'm sure I'll be rather confused as to where the time went, but I'll eventually understand, and until then, you can explain it to me as I'm doing now."

There was something wrong with the pronoun structure of that answer, Arthur just _knew_, though where the problem was, he couldn't say, as it had perhaps lost him somewhere around the third iteration of "I."

"Do you have any more questions?" Merlin asked, seeming to have lost a bit of his patience. "We really must be going, as you ought to be back to the castle by morning, or else Morgana will start to have fits. She always does when I bind time for more than twelve hours."

If there was a point at which something became so unbelievable that disbelief was more effort than simply giving up, Arthur had reached that point and gone around the bend. "No," he said, shrugging into his jacket. "What are we doing, then? The sooner we do this, the sooner I can pretend this is all a drink-inspired dream."

"That's the spirit!" Merlin replied cheerfully, opening the chamber door. "I need to get a bowl from a farmer just outside the city. He just made it earlier today, and, unfortunately, you're going to break it tomorrow, so I really must get it tonight."

"A," Arthur said, taking a deep breath, "_bowl_? What in god's name is this bowl to do?"

"Hold things, of course."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Arthur began, "That's--" but thought better of it. "No. Just. Start walking. I'll follow you. What do you need me to do?"

Starting off down a corridor, Merlin replied, "Be princely, of course. Just tell the farmer you're following some foul beast or robber or something and you saw him walk into the house and you'd really just like to take a look around. Really, it shouldn't be a problem, but I'd have a rough time doing it without you, and were I to have simply done without telling you, you would have been very cross with the me that I am in this place when I showed back up. Or so you said you would be."

Arthur wondered if it was a sign of his rapidly dwindling sanity that his first thought after that was, _So Merlin never really does stop rambling, then, does he?_ Deciding that to be a dangerous door he didn't want to open, he said instead, "I said?"

"The you that you are in the place to which I belong, anyway." Merlin lead Arthur through a doorway out of the castle that he was sure wasn't there earlier and out into a section of forest that Arthur _knew_ didn't connect to the main city.

"Why didn't you just bring that me with, so you wouldn't have to explain to _me_ me or worry about my being cross with you?" Arthur asked.

"Oh, well, you don't really exist outside of time, though, do you? I couldn't really do that without leaving myself horribly exhausted and useless for a week, and I'm sure if I were to do that, Fate would have it that you'd get yourself into some horrible, imminent-death sort of situation, and then where would we be?"

Arthur decided that this conversation was really going to give him a headache, and asked in the hope of managing less-damaging small talk, "So, since you're the you from the future and obviously discussing magic things with the me from the future, when do you finally get around to telling me about the magic things?"

Merlin raised his eyebrows at Arthur's question, but said, "That's sort of cheating, don't you think?"

"Not even a little," Arthur replied solidly. "Considering a great deal of alcohol will be consumed later in the effort of never, ever remembering this again."

"Well then," Merlin replied seriously, but Arthur was given the impression that Merlin might have been laughing at him a little. "I suppose it's more accurate to say that I don't _tell_ you, exactly. More like I've got to decide between undeniably using magic in front of you or letting both of us die in a painful and embarrassing manner." Merlin cringed slightly, seeming to remember. "Which was a great deal worse than any sort of death your father could come up with upon finding out that I was a sorcerer, I assure you." He paused, glancing sideways at Arthur. "I always thought you were a tad too understanding and gracious when you found out, but this conversation probably explains that."

Eyes crossing a bit, Arthur asked, "So then, this conversation had to have happened, even if you didn't know it did, even though it had already happened?" Grammatical terror aside, Arthur had not been precisely sure that sentence was even conceivably understandable.

"Technically, everything that will ever happen has already happened, though what happens is never surefire." Merlin pursed his lips, considering. "I suppose what I mean to say is that, while everything that will happen already has, we still have the freedom to decide what it is that has already happened. Does that make sense?"

"I really wish it didn't," Arthur said, embarrassing himself by groaning a little.

Fortunately, they walked out of the forest and upon a cottage that Arthur was _positive_ was nowhere near the castle before Arthur had the chance to understand any other troubling and unbelievable facts.

The matter of knocking on the front door of the cottage, midnight or not, was relatively simple, as Arthur's royal insignia was a kingdom-wide key to anything ever. Merlin was able to surreptitiously steal the bowl and bow their apologies for disturbing the family uselessly in a matter of minutes.

In fact, they were back into the edge of the forest before Arthur said, "That was sort of anticlimactic, after everything."

"Would you rather we were stabbed? I'm sure we can try again," Merlin replied, smiling in a disturbingly mischievous fashion.

"No, thank you," Arthur muttered. He decided quickly that, however insane this entire night had turned out to be, it definitely could have been _more_ insane, and steadfastly refused to think up ways to make that statement more true. "What are you actually going to use that bowl for?" Arthur asked, in the effort to not overload his own brain.

After a low, strange hum, Merlin replied, "The man made this bowl to commemorate the birth of his daughter yesterday. Tomorrow -- or perhaps later today -- you really are going to go looking for a thief, and the bowl would have gotten broken. Now, since I've taken it, I've always taken it, so you can't break it tomorrow."

"That's wonderful," Arthur said slowly. "I'm glad I don't break it, but what, precisely, does that matter?"

"Unfortunately, in thirty years, while his daughter is pregnant, she becomes horribly ill and it threatens the life of the baby. In a manner that is horribly complicated and you really shouldn't pretend like you'd understand, the bowl is necessary for keeping them both alive. Being as it was a relatively simple task to merely bind time and come get it, I did that, rather than watching them both." Merlin smirked a little. "Actually, you sort of made me. You said that since I could, and it wouldn't hurt anything, I really ought to, since you'd appreciate it oh-so-much. And I really am rubbish at telling you 'no.'"

"That I knew," Arthur said, smiling. "It follows, as you are rubbish at a great many things."

To Arthur's surprise, and slight discomfort, Merlin replied to this by smiling widely. "But not all things," he said, pushing aside a low-hanging branch to reveal that same, possibly not real door to the castle.

"Just so you know," Arthur said, opening the door in a chivalrous fashion, "I am pointedly not asking you about whatever it is that you are doing that makes tiny forests and nonexistent doors appear. I am not an idiot, and I did notice." Arthur wasn't particularly sure why he felt the need to point this out; rarely was _he_ the idiot in any of his and Merlin's interactions.

"Of course." Merlin inclined his head slightly as he walked past Arthur and back up the stairs. Once they had returned to Arthur's chambers, Merlin smiled brightly. "Well, thank you for your help, and in payment I will inform you that tomorrow, when you go after the robber, do not wear the tan trousers, as they will rip in a rather unfortunate place." With a small smile, Merlin vanished much as he'd come. As he'd told Arthur, a Merlin that seemed much more familiar reappeared almost precisely where he'd been standing when he disappeared, though he did a fast double-take at the fact that the candles were now inches shorter and the fire was nearly out.

Before that Merlin could do much but blink in possibly fascinated horror, Arthur said, "Merlin what _are_ you doing? Tend to the fire." Watching with some amusement as Merlin jumped to do as directed, Arthur settled himself back in his chair and retrieved his whetstone from the floor. "And Merlin," he added, leaning back to stare regally at his very confused manservant, "please go retrieve for me the ale that Lord Kennar was so gracious as to give me at his last visit."

"Uhm," Merlin said, looking up from where he was stoking the fire, "all of it?"

"Yes, Merlin. All of it."


End file.
